free chamber experience?

[cheeky_diver]

Firstly, a huge thanks to the Yd'ers who have already helped out with the DDRC's latest research project in Plymouth. These trial dives are still ongoing and I am looking to recruit more volunteers so I can present some results and move onto my next dive study project.

Unfortunately there have been some no-shows on dive days. Firstly this impacts on those who do turn up, secondly it makes me look like I can't even organise a dive in a dive chamber, and most importantly it still costs the charity a huge amount of much needed funds whether the dive goes ahead or not, ok rant over....

I realise that due to the nature of the DDRC’s work I have been only able to give late notice, up until now, to divers who would like to take the opportunity to tour the facilities; hopefully learn more about what we do (other than diver recompression) and most importantly have a fun dry-dive. As a diver/instructor myself I believe all members of the dive community should visit the research centre as it seems that most divers, regardless of experience levels, leave after my research dives saying “wow, I didn’t know that!” and such like! I certainly thought I knew loads about DCI/dive physiology and treatments etc until I started there.
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To combat the late notice problems I have scheduled some preliminary dive slots. Currently these are:

Tuesday 25th Sep
Thursday 27th Sep
Tuesday 2nd Oct
Thursday 4th Oct
Tuesday 9th Oct
Thursday 11th Oct.

Having said that, if you can arrange a number of fellow divers to come on any other weekday I will do my level best to accomodate you.

All dives are lunchtime slots at the moment, which I realise excludes many divers, but if it costs the DDRC a chunk of cash to run the dives during the day, you can imagine the ‘out-of-hours’ costs.

These spaces will be filled on a first come first served basis.
The chamber can take between 6-8 divers. Divers of any qualification can take part. Even divers who have previously visited the DDRC on ‘business’ can be considered for these dives; subject to the Doctors approval.

I am currently contacting local (South West) dive clubs and shops and individuals who have previously expressed an interest in an attempt to drum up volunteers, so a swift response could avoid disappointment.

So, what will this cost you? Well, about 4 hours of your time. And you will ultimately be contributing to cutting-edge research aimed at benefiting all of us in the diving community.

If you have any queries or questions please feel free to reply to this thread,

If you are interested then please contact me for more details,

Regards

Graham Samson

[warmwaterdiver]

I'm sure its been mentioned before Graham but you'd probably get more interest if you did weekends, if we're down there but get blown out then we could be interested and it would make a change from the Aquarium

[cheeky_diver]

I couldn't agree more!!

I'd love to be able to do weekends, even weekdays around 6pm, 7pm, whenever!! Unfortunatley I am just the research student, I design the study/ dive profiles and 'attempt' to recruit divers. But due to cost restraints I can only run these when there are staff on-site as it were.

I have at least 5 times more interested divers willing (begging!) to do these outwith my alloted time, as you do get to learn more than you could from a book about chambers/DCI treatments and what the DDRC do other than recompressions. It's not the DDRC's fault in any way. I blame the wrong lottery numbers every saturday!

But seriously, as we are a charity, cash is a major issue. Sorry, lack of cash is a major issue!! And this is what determines when I can carry out research trials. We need supervisors, operators and doctors on site etc etc, hang on...

....John Prescott is a diver isn't he? maybe he could lend me some cash?

Thanks for your input anyway, It's frustrating for divers who want to do this, and for me who wants to move on to research project number 2 and 3 and well, you get the picture!!

Cheers again

[lloydwatkin]

Might be down that way for some midweek dives in the near future, will check dates and let you know. Cheers, Lloyd.

[Okeanos]

I've done one of these dive with Graham at DDRC, it was very interesting, especially for someone who had never been in the pot before.

Well worth putting your name down and doing it.